Wednesday, April 4, 2012

April Platform Challenge: Day 4

I hope you're enjoying the challenge so far. If you found yesterday's task simple, today's should be even easier. However, it's an important piece of the online platform puzzle, especially with some of the future tasks you'll be asked to perform later this month.

For today's task, create a Twitter account. That's right. Go to http://www.twitter.com/ and sign up--if you're not already. This task will definitely take less than 5 minutes.

(Note:If you leave your Twitter handle in the comments below, I'll be sure to include you in a special Tweeps to Follow list related to the April Platform Challenge.)

As with Facebook, I won't be surprised to learn that most of the participants in this challenge already have a Twitter account. Whether you have an account or not, be sure to check out this Twitter Cheat Sheet for Writers. It's not anything ground-breaking, but it does cover some of the basics.

With Twitter, here are three important things to keep in mind:

Make your profile bio relevant. You might want to use a version of that sentence you wrote for Day 1's task. Incorporate humor if possible (see mine for an example).

Use an image of yourself. One thing about social media (and online networking) is that people love to connect with other people. So use an image of yourself--not of your pet, a cute comic strip, a new age image, flowers, robots, etc.

Make your Twitter handle your byline--if possible. For instance, I am known as @RobertLeeBrewer on Twitter, because I use Robert Lee Brewer as my byline on articles, in interviews, at speaking events, on books, etc. Be as consistent with your byline as humanly possible.

Once you're in Twitter, try finding some worthwhile tweeps to follow. If you need suggestions, here are 101 Tweeps for Writers to Follow. It's a great starting place.

Also, be sure to make a Tweet or two. Need an idea for a Tweet? Why not link to each day's challenge?

Have fun Tweeting today!

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Need to play catch up on this challenge? Here's what we've done so far:

This webinar, led by professional freelance writer Tim Beyers, shares the importance of participating and building a community you want to be involved with, how to meaningfully engage people and be a resource, how to land an assignment for a major publication by following editors on Twitter, and more.

I love twitter! It was such a surprise to me, because I tried really hard not to get an account, but finally broke down last August, and have had pretty good success with it! My name is so long and difficult to remember, my twitter handle is @LASbauer. I'll be looking at the 101 tweeps to follow, and I'll be looking for the people who put their twitter names here too!

Done! Like Lara, I initially fought Twitter because I saw it as perpetuation of one's own over-inflated sense of self importance. But now I'm a complete addict. It has become my source for news and I found a new group of writing-centric friends.

Good strategy, Lara! I would recommend everyone connecting with all fellow April Platform participants on Twitter. In fact, everyone who includes their Twitter handles as an April Platform participant (on this thread), I'll put together a special post of Tweeps to follow. So please share in the comments!

This one is already done, but I'm going to go check your links to learn more.

I have to say that I actually hate Twitter. I do it only as a means to an end to increase platform. I tweet the link to every blog post. I "follow" a lot of people without truly following anyone. I have never been part of a Twitter conversation, mostly b/c one has never really come my way. Idk if I need to play around with settings in order to get tweets in my inbox or on my phone or something, or perhaps to do as Susan K Stewart suggested and use TweetDeck (never heard of that before) so that I can hone in on what interests me.I guess I need to do something, though, b/c I feel like I've done just enought to say I have a Twitter account while still fighting against it.

RE: I would recommend everyone connecting with all fellow April Platform participants on Twitter. In fact, everyone who includes their Twitter handles as an April Platform participant (on this thread), I'll put together a special post of Tweeps to follow.

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OK, that's a good start in convincing me, but the day is young, yet (730am, here), and my last comment still stands as an expression of my reluctance. :-D

As with most days so far of this challenge, I'm starting to feel like I'm "over-complicating" things ... I already had a twitter using my name, but switched that to @leftnwrite08 (my personal account). Then I created one for my blog, @ourlostjungle -- but if you look up my name (Khara House), that's the one that comes up! I kind of prefer it that way, though, to using my real name, in part because I teach at a public university--as soon as my students found out I had a Facebook I got Facebook-stalked, ha-ha.

The @ourlostjungle Twitter account is the one I'm using for this challenge--it's writing/poetry focused.

I got a Twitter account sometime last year but only recently got into the swing of things. Here's what annoys me about it so far:

1. People that post incessantly with random thoughts that do nothing to advance human intellligence. I know, that sounds snobby, right? But, seriously, when there is so much competing for our attention, I don't need to know that you checked into X, Y, and Z and then do a second round of posts giving me your review of that place. We're all friends here, but I also don't think anyone needs to know if you're going to bed, sitting down for dinner, or petting your cat.

2. Please don't send URLs without first adding a comment about where it's taking me. Especially with URL shorteners, there's no telling if you're sending me to a site that's likely to try to highjack my computer.

3. Tweets that are so full of hashtags as to make the message unreadable don't make me jump to find out more. Retweets that may have sounded great to you but that come across as ambiguous to the rest of us aren't amusing either. :)

4. I like keeping track of my favorite celebrities just like anyone else. It's hard to tell though which ones are genuine, and which ones are parity. Yes, this could be theoretically solved by going to that author's website and checking to see if they link to their Twitter there, but that's not always the case.

Okay, negativity aside, here's what I love about it:

1. I love the instant access. It's like RSS feeds but better because there are people sorting through content to make sure the material is worth sharing.

2. I love that the service is so widely accessible. On my phone, on my computer. With the right client, it's easy enough to check recent tweets without having to log into the site. I use a client called The Qube, but ironically, I don't know if it's accessible for sighted people. For me, the client integrates with my operating system so that a few keystrokes quickly brings up what I want out of Twitter without ever leaving the current window. I have to think there are other clients that achieve the same.

3. Twitter is how I found out about you fine people and this challenge, from someone that knew someone who know about He Who is Not Bob!

Out of curiosity I entered my old sign-in info for my personal account, and found out that Twitter was litterally falling all over itself to reactivate my account just as I'd left it back in November. :-D

I've had my twitter account for a year now. Here is my info: https://twitter.com/#!/HerStory2@HerStory2

My question is: Would changing my twitter name from @HerStory2 to RomelleBroas affect my followers? Will they say, "who is this person?" since they've been following me as @HerStory2?

And I'm not liking the idea of having my picture posted all over cyberland. But I guess I'm going to have to. Will it be an easier transition for my followers if I changed my picture first (let them get used to it) then my name or vice versa? Or will it not matter?

I joined Twitter in 2009 to pursue craft interests and left. I rejoined Twitter in 2012 and I decided to focus on my writing as a professional endeavor.

I do my best to engage people and reply to posts. Klout.com calls me a "networker" with 44 points, but I'm still easily frustrated because around 90% of my tweets to people go unanswered. I find that unacceptable.

However, I love Twitter as the starting point for research and current trends for my writing. I am easily inspired by Twitter.

I have had a twitter account for some time, but have never really thought about it as a tool. I felt kind of foolish "tweeting" things. I updated and filled in my profile and will tweet sometime today. My twitter address is @dianadomino. Thanks Robert. I am learning a lot!!

Twitter is a powerful tool in terms of creating a platform, but also a great way to meet and converse with other writers via the Internet. It's not too terrible of an idea to search for hashtags to see what other writers are doing, an example of these hash tags can be seen here: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/40-twitter-hashtags-for-writers/ (I think Robert had posted this link a while back because I definitely found it on Twitter!)

I like going through the #amwriting tag and reading new stories/poems and couldn't recommend the hashtag enough!

I've had a twitter account for a few years and used to (until a year ago) post a lot of micropoetry on it. I got busy and my account became rather inactive. But I'm back on it again. I used a variation on my family nickname.

I am getting better acquainted with Twitter and how hashtags work - and even convincing a fellow writer to join Twitter, which includes explaining to her why it would help her both as a writer and a blogger.

I also am thinking of creating a hashtag for my own blog community. But I need to wait longer to increase the numbers of readers. After all, I just launched 4/1! It's just that I have all these ideas for building community with my readers (which is one of the goals for my website/blog).

I've followed through (here!) so be looking for me please! I wanted to let the people below know I wasn't able to find your twitter account - but maybe it's just me. In case it wasn't just me, I didn't want you to think I (or anyone else) was ignoring you!

@ChidoMuchemwa @TinaMcGrevy @MsMeenaRose @KGkunurazieff

I thought maybe it's because the accounts are new or reactivate? I wrote them down to try again later, though. Maybe Robert might know something I don't on why they didn't show up in Twitter?

This is MUCH harder. I am brand new to twitter. I couldn't put a normal pic of myself up there - it kept telling me it was too large, so I had to use a cartoon pic of myself. I picked a few sites to follow and I am following my two adult daughters. Would love to follow other writers but feel like a dork asking people who don't know me to be my friend. Ack!

Right - this is supposed to be a challenge. Okay - onward and upward. I will follow one non-famous person I don't know today.

Signed up in December: https://twitter.com/MelanieMarttila or @melaniemarttilaI'm not sure I have the hang of it yet, because I'm pretty selective and don't usually log on until after supper. I post at least once a day, retweet what I find interesting, and have even tried a few hashtag experiments. I usually make a typo and my comment languishes nakedly revealing my incompetence :)

I signed up a year or so ago, but have never tweeted. It's really not my 'thing.' But maybe you can convince me otherwise. I'm listed as @EvChristensen Well actually, @evchristensen, but it seemed to work with the capitals also. Do capitals matter?

Robert, Thank you so much for this awesome challenge. I'm creating my first blog to go live June 1, I've reactivated my Facebook and working on adding what I can and added more to my Twitter account. I have yet to Tweet, so I appreciate the energetic encouragement to Tweet each other. I need to learn how. Thank you, @MegMillerMN

I was initially against Twitter, and can't say I yet understand it's value (so many Tweets! so little time!), but I've come around a bit now. Actually, yesterday I wrote a found poem from quotes on Twitter - some good stuff there. I tweet my poetry blog posts and retweet a lot of other people's kidlit-centric tweets.

Unlike some other commenters, I've had no problem with spammers - 99% of my followers are writers.

I have been very hesitant to do this, but now it's up. I used my real name and was happy to see it was available. I am at EvelynMiracle.I had a problem uploading a photo though. I am using a Macbook pro and Iphoto. The Twitter page kept telling me the photo was too large. What should I do?

It took awhile for me to get the hang of Twitter, but have been following advice from Robert and others and have found it more effective than facebook. It's surprising when you figure out how conversational it can be. Lists like Robert's 101 people to follow helped me pick up steam, following people whose insights were interesting to me. The other biggest impact was discovering hashtags: 1) to use hashtags so that your tweets will be read by people interested in your subject matter (add a hashtag for the related topic, so your tweet is linked to that conversation) and 2) to find chat sessions. Commenting in chat sessions on groups like litchat, YAlit, MG lit and even other subjects, like topchef or oscars or interior design, has brought me in touch with more people with similar interests.

Is there some easy way to "follow everyone who is part of the challenge"? sounds like a lot of keying in and probably a lot of mistakes in doing so = a bunch of useless links. I do not have a twitter account and do not understand the first thing about how it works or why i should want to get 700 140-character communications a day from 700 different people. Is there a "Twitter 101" for folks like me? I hate spam...allysonyj(this aversion may dump me out of the raffle, alas, but i will keep on plugging on the other daily tasks while working on understanding the need for this one.)

I'm commenting too late to make the Tweeps list, but I'll add my Twitter name here anyway: @gerrywil. I've had an account for some while, but I haven't made it work for me. I'm following a number of writers/agents/ publishers, etc., but I'm not picking up many followers. That may well be because I don't tweet often enough. Your posts will help, maybe!

I had a twitter account, but needed to change by account name. Unfortunately, there are too many people with my name, but when I added my favorite number to my name, it was accepted. I can now be found on twitter at @CindyBlair13. I will post a link to this challenge as my first post.

Been on Twitter awhile but can't seem to engage in "conversations," or maybe I'm not interested/interesting enough to want to chatter. Thanks to commenter about TweetDeck. It sounds like an effective controller. @MaryEPfeiffer

As I said earlier ... had hesitated with this challenge because I was ambivalent about opening a Twitter account.. when I decided to 'go for it" discovered I had one all along! Changed name ... my entire name will not fit... so I am

Done. When I read this challenge, I nearly gave up. I had a twitter account when twitter first came out. I didn't even know what it was or what I was doing, so I have an account@ObermoellerI've always felt like all these social media things take away time for writing... but here I am. Guess I'll start tweeting... Is it really necessary?

My daughter set me up with a Twitter account under a business name that I have been incubating (@whirledpeascafe) but I never took the time to figure it all out. Today I created @LaraBrittWrites. I hope you all can find it. Good luck with the program. It is giving me the kick in the pants I needed. Lara Britt is a pen name. Lori Sailiata is my legal name...and if I'm not mistaken blogspot still has me as beatrix, a name created for a creative writing class I took many years ago.

OK, I created an account some time back at the enthusiastic urging of a bubbly colleague. Have felt pretty lost when actually trying to use it, but am game to try again. Especially if we become a group with common interest. Can we still be added to the list? @sarahwbartlett.

I already have a Twitter account, and I'm already connected to you via Twitter, so for Day 4, I sent you invitations to connect on Facebook and LinkedIn. (I'm using my name on everything, so, according to you, I'm doing that right!

I've never wanted to sign up for a Twitter account (why get bombarded by daily detritus of people who think their doings are so important?). But now it's done. My Twitter handle: @KarenLeePliskin (or is it @karenleepliskin). And yes, my middle name is also Lee.